What I realized last week was that the more you know about something, the more interesting it becomes. Pretty obvious, I know, but let me give you an example as it relates to museums and artifacts.

Last Wednesday I wrote up an accession sheet and scanned the title and signature pages of an old algebra book (at right) donated this past summer by the Whately Historical Society. They donated it to the Hatfield Historical Museum because the name written on the first blank page was “Hattie A. Sanderson” (that’s what it looked like), followed by “Smith Academy, Hatfield, Mass., 1873.” The book was published in 1872, with a worn, but nice-looking leather cover, and has some equations in pencil scribbled on the inside back cover. The book is letterpress printed – meaning it was set with moveable type and leaves an impression on the page where the inked metal letters struck the paper. If you look closely (click on the image), you can see the imprint from the other side of the page -- which is pretty cool!

Click on image to find Mattie A. Sanderson of Whately.

Then Thursday in the museum I came across a Smith Academy Bulletin from 1873, in which they list student academic honors – both overall and in subjects such as Latin, Greek, Geography, Book-keeping, Algebra and more. And there, under Honorable Mentions, was Mattie (it wasn’t Hattie) A. Sanderson, of Whately. Another Bulletin, from 1875, showed that Mattie had moved up academically to the Roll of Honor, and was listed as a top student in Rhetoric.

With just these added bits of information that give some context to her life, I found myself thinking about her in a different light and picturing a high school student not unlike my own son (who’s now a freshman at Smith Academy). But it also left me asking questions.

Did Whately have its own high school? Why did her parents send her to school in Hatfield? How did she get to school? Did it still cost money to attend Smith Academy at that time, and if so, what did it say about her parents’ economic status and what they felt about the importance of education?

Click on image to see "girlie" cards found inside.

Oh, and it gets more interesting. Tucked inside the pages of this 140-year-old math textbook, I found three small trading cards, each a montage of 20 tiny photos – actresses or pin-up girls. One of the cards was stamped on the back with “James A. Bardwell, No. Hatfield, Mass.,” so presumably these cards belonged to young Bardwell and made studying algebraic equations a little more palatable!

The more connections you can make about something, the more interesting it becomes. We have done this often in the Polish Immigration exhibit and Hatfield’s Buried Colonial Village exhibit, but I’d like to expand it to the whole museum. Of course, that takes time, space, and knowing what you have so you can start connecting the dots. Another reason why doing an full inventory of one’s collection is so important!

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Curator's musings...

As the curator of a small town Historical Society museum, I wonder a great many things. Am I alone in these thoughts that come to me while driving, or exercising, or falling asleep at night? Is it unusual to be constructing displays and writing copy in one's head for an enlarged museum space that does not, as yet, exist?

If you're wondering about the blog title, "Bird by bird," see my First Post for an explanation! Click HERE to read it.

When I'm not thinking about our museum or rehousing artifacts with my fellow museum committee members, I'm helping out with the Pioneer Valley History Network (of which I'm a board member), collecting or editing digital oral histories (see words.pictures.stories)or keeping track of my two teenage kids.